


like we always will

by anaesthetist



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Feelings, M/M, Songwriting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-01 02:31:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12146721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaesthetist/pseuds/anaesthetist
Summary: Under any other circumstance, Luke would go back to bed, blowing off whoever it is he’s supposed to be meeting up with that day in exchange of a few extra hours of sleep—but he can’t. Not today. He’s writing with Calum today.





	1. studio

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by a) the copious amount of boomerangs luke took of calum in the studio and b) songwriting cake.

Not for the first time this week, Luke wakes up with a hangover.

It’s not a painful, debilitating hangover, but there is something especially sluggish in the way Luke negates around his home, his entire world cast in soft focus. In the mirror above the sink, his reflection is almost distorted, but the bags under his eyes and the sick grey tint to his features is startlingly clear for the few seconds he affords himself to look. Fingers curled around the rim of the sink, he drops his head down, hair falling in his face, and puffs out his cheeks, eyes now fixed on the water swirling down the drain.

“Fuck,” he mutters, squinting his eyes shut before cupping his hands under the running water and splashing it up onto his face. Slowly, he lets his fingers drag down his face, catching on his bottom eyelid, the wet inside edge of his lip, before falling away to his sides again.

Under any other circumstance, Luke would go back to bed, blowing off whoever it is he’s supposed to be meeting up with that day in exchange of a few extra hours of sleep—but he can’t. Not today. He’s writing with Calum today.

It’s this thought alone that sends Luke grinding through the motions, feeding Petunia but not himself, stomach not quite settled enough to eat. He’s cutting it fine by the time he needs to leave, hair still wet and scraped back into a small bun, his t-shirt sticking to the still-damp dip of his spine. Petunia watches him shove on a pair of boots, cocking her head in a tell-tale show of curiosity. Luke makes the mistake of looking her right in the eye before he snatches his car keys off the counter, an insatiable urge forcing him down to where she’s spread out lazily to plant a quick kiss between her ears. 

Calum’s not there when Luke pulls into the studio car park. Getting his guitar out the back, Luke frowns at the empty space reserved for him. Calum has never been particularly punctual, and Luke isn’t worried for any reason, he just wishes he were here. It’s the same feeling he would get before school, when his bus had been earlier than Calum’s and he could no longer count on Michael to show up. He would float around, invisible, just waiting for Calum to come. If he did, fantastic. If he didn’t, school wasn’t worth sitting through.

So, like many years before, Luke waits for Calum.

He sits himself down on the curb near the front of the studio, long legs stretched out on the road and crossed at his ankles. Through his sunglasses he watches the entrance to the studio car park, intermittently checking the time on his phone as he waits. He thinks about calling Calum, just to check that he’s coming, but decides against it in the end. Calum’s coming. Calum never lets him down.

Today is no exception.

Like a dog, Luke perks up at the sight of Calum’s car pull into the car park. By the time he’s made the short walk to Luke, notepad and journal in hand, Luke’s just about ready to bounce up and join him despite the lingering lethargy from his hangover. Calum and sitting out in the sun has probably helped, but both of those things aren’t necessarily that different.

“What’re you doing out here for?” Calum says by way of greeting, his shadow falling over Luke.

Luke tilts his head up, smiling. “Waiting for you.”

Calum’s eyebrows quirk up, then back down again. Passing both his notepad and journal under one arm, he stretches out the other to offer Luke a hand up. His hand is warm and firm, and he pulls Luke up easily, letting him bump up against the solid curve of his shoulder. He gives Luke a quick clap over the back for good measure.

“Is Rami here yet?” Calum asks.

Luke leans back down to get his guitar case. “Dunno,” he says, shrugging. He starts to walk towards the stairs in front of them, his strides long. Calum gets to the door before he does and holds it open for him, following in straight after. Luke keeps his head turned to look at him, juggling the case in his arms as he steps through a door. “I thought of this riff,” he begins to tell him. “I tried it a few days ago and it’s a bitch to play, so maybe Michael could do it.”

Calum scoffs out a laugh. “He’ll love you for that.”

Luke sits on the couch, guitar taking up the space beside him as Calum plants himself down on one of the office chairs, rolling it away from the mixing board towards Luke.

“I heard you had a good time last night,” Calum says nonchalantly, body slouching in his seat as he takes out his phone.

“Who’d you hear that from?” Luke asks as he shrugs off his jacket, the denim too hot and heavy to sit in for very long. He’d went out with Brian and another couple of friends last night to see a DJ that once toured with Brian’s band back in the day, and what Calum has heard is correct. He’d had a brilliant night. Drank loads. Danced wild. Kissed a couple of hot girls. “Brian? Sierra?”

Calum shrugs, lips pressed tight. “Did you?”

“Did I what?”

Calum sits forward a little. “Have a good time?”

Luke sucks on the inner walls of his cheeks, eyes on Calum, wondering why he cares so much. “Yeah,” he says, lazily beginning to unzip his guitar case. “It was good.”

Elbows resting on his knees, Calum is almost completely folded over himself, leaning so far forward now that Luke could reach out and touch him if he wanted. He kind of does. “Good,” he says quietly, nodding. “That’s good.”

Without anything better to say, Luke lets a silence fall between them as he turns his attention to his guitar and Calum’s eyes drop down to his phone. He brings the guitar down onto his lap and lets it sit there, hunching down far enough to be able to rest the hollow of his cheek against the edge of the body. Gently, he drags his fingers up and down the strings, listening as the slightest of touches causes the quietest of noises to emit.

The chair squeaks as Calum lifts his ass up to slip his phone away.

“Let’s hear it then,” he says.

Luke looks up at him, blinking in confusion.

“The riff, dude.”

He doesn’t have much, but what he does manage to execute without fucking up brings a hint of a smile to Calum’s face and a devious sort of glint to his eye like he’s planning something brilliant. Calum is brilliant. He’s always been brilliant. Luke remembers hammering out _Out of My Limit_ for the first time in its initial incarnation, thinking how brilliant it was, then looking over at Calum, squashed up in the space between his bed and desk, and thinking the same.

“Sick, bro,” is Calum’s simple, yet heart-fluttering praise.

Pride swells up in Luke’s chest as he shifts around, feeling a little taller, a little lighter.

*

Over the last few months, Luke has developed quite a penchant for taking boomerangs of Calum. He’s not sure why he does it, why he finds it so amusing, or why Calum seems to be the focus of most of them, but nothing stops him from taking out his phone and slowly turning the camera from Calum back to himself.

They’re not doing much when Luke gets bored enough to make another.

Calum’s looking down at his own phone when Luke glances across the couch. They’ve been listening back to some old demos with Rami, and Luke has managed to squirm his way to the very end of the couch, and embarrassment twisting in his gut at all the love songs he wrote but doesn’t want to listen to anymore. He’s just about managed to fuck and drink all those feelings away, so he doesn’t need a constant reminder of how badly he’d got things wrong. Calum doesn’t seem to think so either, sending Luke soft, pitying glances as he curls into himself tighter and tighter as the music played.

He’s not subtle about filming Calum. Not all the time, anyway.

“Calum,” he says to get his attention, thumb hovering over the record button. “Do something.”

Calum’s head jerks up, eyes warm and lips parted around a question Luke doesn’t give him time to ask. Lacking anything better to do, he sticks his tongue out at the camera before Luke turns it back to himself, widening his eyes and lifting his eyebrows. Watching it back, Luke sees the same tired eyes look back at him from this morning, pausing briefly to wonder if this’ll cause too much unnecessary worry.

He deletes the boomerang.

“Do it again,” he says, switching the camera and turning his body entirely to Calum this time.

“What was wrong with that one?” Calum asks, eyes back on his phone.

It’s not beneath Luke to whine, so he does. “Caaal,” he says, leaning himself towards Calum, not quite close enough to touch. “Just do it.”

With a heavy huff of breath, Calum mutters a small ‘fine’ which has Luke reeling back in victory. Once again, he sticks his tongue out at the camera, only this time Luke doesn’t turn it back to himself. It’s just Calum this time. Everyone loves Calum. Luke especially loves Calum, and sometimes he wonders if it’s possible for someone to love him more.  

*

When they eat lunch, Calum rests his feet up on Luke’s legs.

“Dominated,” he says, grinning, and Luke doesn’t push his feet away.

*

“John let me listen to the song you and him wrote.”

When Calum speaks, it’s around a cigarette hanging from the corner of his lips. They’re outside, sitting in the shade of the studio where no one will find them. A flame bursts from the end of Calum’s lighter but the doesn’t catch. Calum curses under his breath then tries again, and this time it works, the glow at the end of his cigarette entrancing Luke for a moment before he snaps out of it, turning his nose into Calum’s shoulder to escape the smell. Hidden like this, he can feel his lashes drag against the soft material of Calum’s t-shirt and the warmth of his body radiating off him.

“Oh.”

“It’s good. Funky.”

“Funky,” Luke snorts, jostling Calum as he begins to laugh.

They sit in silence for a little while as Calum smokes and Luke thinks about how nice it is to have Calum all to himself for a little while. It reminds of staying back in London, of curling up in bed and staring over at Calum, whispering and listening out for Ashton’s footsteps in the dead of night, dragging Michael away from the Xbox in the living-room and up to bed. He misses that, being in a house full of friends. Now he’s got a big house to himself with only Petunia for company. Sometimes it’s enough, but sometimes it’s not.  

“Are you alright?” Calum asks out of the blue.

Luke ignores him for a moment, watching some of the ash from his cigarette float down and land on his jeans. Calum moves to brush it away before he can, muttering a small apology as he does.

Luke pulls the band out of his hair and rolls it down his wrist. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he asks, playing with it.

When Calum shrugs, Luke’s body moves with his.

A weird air descends upon them, one that hasn’t fallen for months. Memories of that time are hazy, smudged right through the middle to the point they are almost completely indecipherable. Luke tries to ignore the uncomfortable chill beginning to work its way up his spine as he shifts his bum around on the concrete step.

Luke turns his face into Calum’s t-shirt again. “What do you think is worse?” he asks. “Letting someone use you, or catching on to the fact and using them back?”

“Luke,” Calum says gently.

“Which one is worse?” he asks again, lifting his head.

Smoke dances around Calum’s head like a halo. His eyes are slightly narrowed and his mouth hangs ajar, twitching slightly as he thinks about it a little more. He’s better at that than Luke is; thinking things through, saying the right thing. Sometimes Luke wishes he could be a little more like Calum. Things would be a lot easier if he was a little more like Calum.

Calum sighs.

“I’m done,” he says instead, not wasting any breath on giving out answers he knows Luke already has. He crushes the butt of his cigarette into the ground. “Are you coming?”

They get up together, scarily in sync, and dust themselves off. Luke runs a hand over his head, his scalp a little sore from his hair being tied up, and watches as Calum stretches his arms above his head, his skin glowing in the sunshine he’s stepped into. Luke stays in the shade, a sickly feeling marring his insides.

There’s only one way to fix things, he concludes as they step back inside the studio.

Without warning, Luke jumps on Calum’s back, arms circling around his neck and legs swinging forward, the backs of his thighs quickly supported by Calum’s hand. Unbalanced, Calum stumbles in the narrow hallway, bumping Luke up against the wall, marginally missing a row of framed photographs. They both howl out a laugh.

“Jesus, Luke,” Calum says, voice strained, but he makes no move to put him down. “You’re fucking heavy.”

Calum walks uneasily down the hallway, helped in no part by Luke’s constant giggling and squawking, pausing briefly ever so often to hitch Luke further up his back when it feels like he’s slipping down. When they reach the door to the main area of the studio, Calum half expects Luke to jump down, but isn’t entirely surprised when he stretches out an arm to open the door for them, his other arm still wrapped tightly over the front of Calum’s chest.

Bursting through the door, Rami shakes his head when he sees them, calling them children. Carl, who has shown up sometime when they were away, watches them like an escaped circus act.

Calum drops Luke down on the couch in the end, his back hitting the cushions and knocking the air out of his lungs. He laughs breathlessly as Calum catches his own, face flushed from the effort. He flips him off when he notices Luke staring, then grabs a pen from the table and chucks it at Luke’s face. Luke throws his hands up in surrender.

“You’re so fucking annoying,” he says.

Luke swings out a leg, catching Calum’s thigh with his foot.

Unluckily for Luke, Calum curls his hand around his ankle and yanks hard, pulling his ass almost all the way off the couch. He thrashes in retaliation, just about to fall into the space between the couch and coffee table. Calum takes pity and lets him go.

*

If he could, Luke would crawl inside Calum’s mind.

It’s one of those weird, usually alcohol-induced thoughts that comes to him every so often, and stays until he’s distracted by something else. He thinks about it staring at him through the glass of the vocal booth, twisting and untwisting the cap off a bottle as Calum flicks through his journal, one of his cheeks squashed where it rests against his curled fist as he leans forward onto the table and reads. It would be amazing, he imagines, and maybe even a little overwhelming.

There must be a lot going on up there if he has to write it down.

“Were going to try one more take, alright, Luke? Just one more, I promise.”  

Luke startles slightly at the sound of Carl’s voice, but gives him the thumbs up as he steps forward towards the microphone.

*

When Luke is done doing vocals, he goes straight to Calum.

“Sounding good, bro,” he says, closing over his journal but leaving his notebook open. He taps the pen where he’s just finished writing. “Have a look at this for me?”

Luke slides beside Calum easily, thigh pressing tightly to his. He takes the notebook and balances it between their knees, reminding himself before he reads that he has to be objective; just because it’s Calum, doesn’t mean it’s going to be perfect. Most of the time it is, and Luke gets that buzz of adrenaline fizzing in his veins, his own mind already beginning to swim with ideas, but he needs to be prepared.

“Me and Ash came up with a bassline,” Calum explains quietly in his ear as he reads, then begins to hum a tune. They lyrics are upbeat— _funky_ , almost, Luke thinks with a smile—and he can already imagine himself strutting around on stage, microphone in hand, dancing and getting just as hyped as the crowd. Luke will never admit it, but he sort of loves the freedom and buzz of stepping away from his guitar sometimes, commanding the stage and audience like the frontman he could never imagine being. “What do you think?” Calum says when he looks up, that usual yet unfounded hint of uncertainty plaguing his voice.

“It’s lit,” Luke says.

Calum laughs. “No one says ‘lit’ anymore.”

Luke leans in closer to Calum, eyes wide. “It’s fucking lit.”  

“If you say so,” he says, smiling.

They work on the song together with Rami and Carl, Luke with his guitar on his lap and Calum standing up in the middle of the floor, pacing and singing with his hand on his abdomen. The bones of it are there, and by the end of the day—or what Luke assumes to be the end of the day, his mind lost in the weird, timeless nature of being in the studio—it’s more or less fleshed-out into an actual song. Rami says it’s got album potential, and Luke warms when Calum glows.

“Ready to head?” Calum asks him as he stretches, guitar safely back in its case. “I’m fucking starving.”

Does Luke want to go home? He needs to get back to Petunia, but he doesn’t necessarily want to leave. He wants to write a few more songs with Calum, pick his brain for ideas. He wants to spend more time with him.

“You could come over to mine,” Luke suggests, pulling his jacket on. “We could order something in.”

Calum shifts on his feet, and Luke already knows the answer. “I need to pick up Duke.”

“Oh. Fair enough.”

Luke almost feels bad for how genuinely apologetic Calum looks. “Sorry.”

Like everything else, Luke quashes it down. He shakes his head, shrugging. “It’s cool. Petunia doesn’t like to share me anyway.”

Something odd flits across Calum’s face for a moment. Luke can’t place it, but it doesn’t matter because Calum is pulling him into a hug before he can begin to think it through. Despite himself, Luke clings to Calum, squeezing him tight, letting him know something he might not already know.

“I love you, man,” Luke says quietly.

Calum stills for a moment, then begins to pat Luke’s back. “Love you, too.”

When Calum leaves, Luke is left standing there in the studio with his guitar case in hand and Carl giving him a soft, pitiful look like he knows something Luke doesn’t.  


	2. home

Months ago, on Calum’s birthday, Luke had felt something he hadn’t felt for a very long time as he pushed through a crowd of people. He’d been late through no fault of his own, but still remained acutely aware of Ashton’s annoyance as he passed him, his face no longer bothering to twist into a frown. He had ignored everyone and anything in search of Calum, a diluted sense of importance beginning to flood through him as the ring of people around Calum continued to change but never dissipate.

Luke doesn’t remember where his jealousy transpired, not even now with a clear mind and a gentle breeze catching under his t-shirt as he walks Petunia. What he does remember is finding Calum later, throwing himself into his lap as his girlfriend watched. In part it was to annoy him, as always, but in even greater part it was to keep him focused, keep his attention on Luke. He felt—rivalled, almost, in a room full of people that loved Calum, but how many of them could sit in his lap? How many of them would Calum put up with for all this time? Luke’s shoulders ease with the satisfaction that answer is barely anyone at all.

Luke smiles to himself.

It’s late in the evening, but it’s still quite light outside. Luke’s not going out tonight, taking it easy, probably spending the entire time thinking of new ways he can bug the shit out of Petunia. It’s a small price to pay for a full belly, walkies and a new toy to tear apart because Luke has no impulse control when it comes to buying her things.

They’re almost all the way back home when Petunia begins to pull on her leash, excited. It’s only then that Luke notices the other car in his driveway, the body lingering by his doorstep. Calum gives him a short wave as comes closer.

“Hey,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

Calum has his hands slipped in the front of his jeans. Unlike Luke, he hasn’t changed since they left the studio.

“Do I need an excuse?” he asks.

Luke supposes not as he opens the door, taking the leash off Petunia and letting her amble inside for a drink. He straightens up and almost bumps into Calum, their bodies close on the small step outside Luke’s front door. Calum’s just sort of staring back at him, the slightest arch to his eyebrows and his pupils narrowed down to slits.

“Where’s Duke?”

“At home.”

Luke nods. “Wanna come in?”

Calum doesn’t say anything as he steps inside, shoulder grazing Luke’s. He goes straight to the living room, straight to the corner of the couch, and pats the space beside him. It’s an invitation for Petunia, not him, and Luke has to remind himself of that before he goes tumbling into Calum’s side.

“I thought you couldn’t come over,” Luke says.

“For dinner. I can’t stay long. Duke’ll chew the ends of my curtains if I’m away too long.”

Sort of just hovering in no-mans-land, Luke scratches at his wrist where there’s an indent from his hair tie. “He’s got the gnashers for it,” he jokes and Calum laughs, making him smile. Just as he does, Petunia passes him by to jump up onto the couch beside Calum. She rests her head heavily in his lap. “Don’t tell Mikey or Ash, but I think she likes you best.”

Calum’s grin spreads wider across his face, and Luke smiles back, infected by it.

“Damn straight she does.”

His head tilts down towards Petunia then, his hands coming to scratch behind her ears. She pants happily where she lays, turning her own head up towards Calum, helping him search out where she wants to be scratched most. Beneath her chin, as it turns out.   

For a while, perching himself on the opposite arm of the couch, Luke just watches them. He gets this weird sense of completion, or something like it, strumming through him, clogging up his insides until he’s all heavy and slow, body threatening to tip over and send him crashing to the floor. He swallows down thick and audible, unable to take his eyes away. He’s seen and felt like this before. He’s lost this before. He lost it because it was never real, never true—a sweet, perfect little lie he built up for himself.

No one ever bought his lies but himself.

He’s the only one that looks stupid now.

Luke stands up sharply and heads for the kitchen. It’s not exactly out of sight of Calum, but it’s a far enough away for his body to shake some of its heaviness. Still, he has to lean on the counter, back to the living-room, with his hands clenched tightly on the marble. Somewhere behind him Calum is saying his name—not overly concerned, just curious.

“Luke?”

Luke squinches his eyes shut. He can feel the heat of Calum’s body moving closer behind him.

“What?”

“Are you okay?” Calum asks softly. It’s the second time today.

“I just,” Luke says. He unclenches and clenches his fists over and over, eyes open to watch the skin at his knuckles go deathly white over the bone. “I just, I wish everything would go away. I wish—”

Luke wishes everyone would have the decency to act like nothing happened, like he’s doing. He wishes people would stop asking if he’s okay, if there’s some ulterior motive for everything that he does or says. He wishes people would let him live his life without pointing out the weight on his back that’s dragging him down but he’s doing a swell job of pretending isn’t there.

He wishes everyone would stop thinking that they know everything there is to know about him, as if he could never grow, never change. He wishes he wasn’t condemned to stay the same shy blond boy forever just to keep things simple for everyone else.

Mostly he wishes he knew exactly how he felt about Calum without everything in his head screeching things into distortion.

Calum lays a hand on his shoulder, urging him to turn around but not pulling. When he doesn’t budge, Calum relents, sliding his hand down to Luke’s bicep.

“Luke,” Calum says, even softer this time. His body is so very close, and if Luke were in any other mood, he would turn and cling to him until he got annoyed or uncomfortable. “Mate, you can’t keep acting like nothing ever happened. Don’t wallow in it, but you need to, like, learn from shit like that. You’ll just end up doing the same thing if you keep on pretending—”

“That’s not fucking it, though,” Luke says, cutting him off. He turns sharply, sending Calum back one tentative step. “It’s not about that—it’s about me, and you, a-and—” Luke stares at where Calum’s hand, once on his arm, stays hovering in air, close to his chest.

“What?” Calum asks, brow creasing. “There’s nothing up with us, is there?”

Luke wants to wilt to the ground at the slight trembling edge to Calum’s words. His eyes drop down, waiting for the ground to open and swallow him whole. Perhaps, though, that’s a tad too much mercy than he deserves.

He shakes his head desperately, hair falling in his face.

“No, no, no, that’s not what I meant,” he says. He runs his hands down his face, rubbing at his eyes, trying to focus. “We’re best mates, we still are, and I—well, I love you. A lot.” Luke’s voice drops to a barely audible whisper. “Maybe—maybe more than I should.”

Calum’s hand drops as his face twists in confusion, his lips slightly parted like a question has escaped too quickly and quietly for Luke to catch. Then he shuts his eyes and his frown deepens, hand coming back up to touch his temple. His lips begin to quiver with the questions of, “What?”

Luke can’t explain it. He can’t. Calum’s supposed to know, without words. It’s part of the deal, he thinks. He’s never supposed to ask.

Calum is right there in front of him, so close that Luke can see all the individual tears in the skin of his dry lips, the little flecks of fluff caught in his thick, dark curls. He can’t breathe, he feels, his chest becoming tight and his heart ballooning, crushing his lungs to his ribs. By his sides his fingers jerk, the distance between them and the hem of Calum’s shirt so easily closed in his mind, so easily drawn and fisted together in a grip so tight it would hurt.   

Calum licks his bottom lip.

What Luke lacks in words, he makes up in his actions, surging forward and kissing Calum before he can think of a reasonable excuse not to. Calum is frozen for a moment after they stumble back, still where Luke holds his face in his hands. Panic explodes in Luke’s chest, sending up a ringing in his ear. His entire body seizes up as he waits for the inevitable shove to his chest. He doesn’t stop kissing him.

It’s much gentler when it comes.

Luke’s mouth hangs ajar as he stares back at Calum, his expression unreadable, and drops his hands. There’s barely any space between them, and Calum’s the only thing Luke can see.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Calum says.

Luke stomach sinks, but he nods. He’s just about to pull away entirely when Calum’s hands twist into the front of his t-shirt and sends him falling back a few steps, stopped by the edge of the counter that sends a jolt of pain through his tailbone. For a second he’s sure he’s about to get punched, even turns his face away in preparation, but his body floods with relief when a pair of lips come down gently onto the edge of his jaw. It only takes the slightest nudge of Luke’s head for their lips to meet again, softer this time, this time with less force but more purpose.

It’s Calum that pulls away when Luke’s teeth begin to catch on the wet inside edge of his bottom lip. He keeps his body pressed forward, Luke’s body melding into the edge of the counter still.

“Shouldn’t have done that,” Calum mutters. His breath is warm on Luke’s face. “That’s everything fucked.”

“More fucked,” Luke amends quietly.

Calum laughs, short and stilted, when Luke lifts his gaze from where it’s been set on Calum’s tattooed hands still clutching at the front of his t-shirt. Luke doesn’t ever want him to let go.

*

There’s a slight shake to Luke’s hand as he sets a cup of coffee down in front of Calum. When he sits, he makes sure to leave a little space between them, head facing forwards to where Petunia sleeps on her bed across the room, finally bored of all the attention she isn’t getting. It’s hard—Calum’s the only thing he thinks he might love more in this world. It’s close.

Luke takes a shy look over at Calum, and ducks his head back when Calum catches him over the edge of his mug.

“Luke,” Calum says.

“It’s weird now, isn’t it?” Luke asks.

“How?” Calum asks back. Luke can’t see him, but he feels the shift of his weight on the couch, moving towards him. “Just because I know now, it’s different?”

Luke clenches his eyes shut, then opens them again. Petunia is awake now, her big brown eyes gleaming with the same look Carl had given him earlier.

“I kissed you,” he says flatly.

Calum stops shifting towards him when their shoulders brush. “I kissed you back,” he points out, but Luke’s not entirely sure what point it is that he’s trying to prove. So close, Luke can smell the coffee on his breath, tickling the side of his face. “Have you wanted to—for a while?”

“I don’t know.  I-I didn’t know what I wanted,” he says. “I still don’t.”

“Me?” Calum ventures, making Luke turn. If not for the hunch of Luke’s shoulders and the low drop of his head, their noses would just skim. Calum’s eyebrows are raised but his eyes are soft, waiting for an answer that might now come. “There’s no point in not telling me now, man,” Calum says, stern.

“Why do I need to say it if you know?”

“Because I’m not a fucking mind reader and you can’t do your usual closed-off bullshit with me,” Calum says. “Plus, no offence, but you’re kind of an asshole and I—well, I just gotta make sure, y’know?”

Luke sours a little at the insult, but he can’t even begin to pretend it’s one of the worst things he’s been called, nor can he deny it. He is a bit of an asshole, and Calum has every right to be wary. His wariness keeps him from getting hurt, and maybe Luke could learn a thing or two. He probably never will, though.

“I love you,” Luke says, shuddery and quiet in Calum’s face.  

In his head, it clicks into place a little more. He loves Calum. Of course he does. He just loves him a lot more than he ever allowed himself to realise. He always thought they would be friends forever, and that would be enough. But more and more he values what he has with Calum—a wordless, sexless bond between two people who brought out the best in each other—more than anything the people he slept with could ever offer him. Most people get both, but Luke’s come to the realisation that maybe he’s not smart or lucky enough to hang on to the hope of having it both ways. Maybe the gradual manipulation of a friendship he doesn’t deserve into something more is what he will ultimately get, and it will be no less valuable than any other, more conventional relationship.

He’s getting a bit ahead of himself, though.

“I love you,” he repeats, then kisses Calum again, hands skirting over his shoulders, unsure where is safe to settle. In the end they come down onto Calum’s lap, fingertips skimming the very hem of his t-shirt. “Is that what you wanted to know?”

Calum slips his hand into his hair, twisting the curly blond locks in his fingers.

“I already knew.”

*

When Calum needs to leave, Luke goes tense. Everything’s gone a little dreamlike and fuzzy in his mind, like a hangover but much softer around the edges. It’s exactly like being startled out of a dream when Calum says he needs to go, the taste of the inside of his mouth bitter on Luke’s tongue and a giddiness keeping his hands from settling.

It’s all going to be over, Luke thinks as he stumbles after Calum to the door. They’re going to meet up later on in the week and Calum’s going to pretend this never happened—or worse, make up some bullshit about how it wasn’t real, that he only did it because he wanted Luke to feel better. He wanted Luke to feel better, so he went along with his little game.

Luke catches Calum by the wrist before he reaches the door, Petunia between their feet.

“We’re alright, aren’t we?” he asks, thumb running over the tattoo on Calum’s hand. “Like, we’re going to sort this out, right?”

Calum touches the side of Luke’s face, and he can’t help but lean into the touch.

“If that’s what you want, yeah.”

Luke smiles with just the slightest little quirk of his lips.

It’s weird, and he’s still not entirely sure where he stands with Calum, or how exactly Calum feels about him, but he supposes that doesn’t all matter right now. Calum loves him—in some capacity, he loves Luke dearly, and that makes Luke more privileged than most. He thinks of all those people at Calum’s party, about how many of them loved him, and how few Calum loved back so fiercely. He knows Calum doesn’t open himself up so easily, and sometimes he wonders when he managed to worm his way inside in the first place so casually, so without incident. It’s certainly not his normal style.

“Better go before Duke wrecks the place,” Calum says. Luke drops his wrist. “I’ll see you, yeah?”

For the second time today, Luke lurches to pull Calum into a hug. This time he presses a small kiss to the side of Calum’s face, whispering a quiet, “See ya.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can you tell i'm a teenage boy with the emotional scope of a sack of tatties lmao


End file.
